The University of Connecticut spent $27.2 million last year subsidizing its sports teams and programs — the third highest in the nation among public schools with Division 1 sports teams, a review released Monday by the Chronicle for Higher Education found. UConn’s overall sports budget ranked 40th.
Higher Education
Posted inEducation
Ojakian hopes to calm the storm at CSCU, yet make merger work
The career public employee with a reputation for lowering the temperature in heated situations hopes that quality will help him resolve the underlying fiscal, labor and educational issues that plagued his predecessors.
Posted inEducation, Health, Justice, Money, Politics
Malloy pitches $350M in cuts; GOP wants mix of cuts, labor savings
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy presented legislators Thursday with almost $350 million in budget-cutting options that would fall heavily on social services, education and municipal aid, according to documents obtained by The Mirror. Meanwhile, leaders of the legislature’s Republican minority offered an array of spending cuts and new restrictions on state employees’ wages and benefits, all of which presumably would require negotiations with labor unions.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
UConn faculty not to blame for tuition hikes
The University of Connecticut administration attribute the need for another tuition increase to labor contracts with university faculty. This is not the case. We agree with the administration that declines in state appropriations are a primary cause of the UConn budget shortfall, but there is little evidence to support the claim that faculty salaries and benefits alone are driving up expenses.
Posted inEducation
UConn again looking to tuition increases to fill budget gap
The University of Connecticut will consider closing up to one-third of its $40.2 million budget shortfall by boosting how much it costs students to attend the public university.
Posted inEducation, Politics
John Esty, education reformer and father-in-law of congresswoman, dies at 87
John Esty, the father of Daniel Esty and father-in-law of Congresswoman Elizabeth S. Esty, played significant roles in prying open the door to the exclusive club of elite prep schools and colleges in New England by pushing for the admission of women and minorities in the 1960s and 70s.
Posted inEducation, Justice
CSCU seeks funding to offer college degrees to inmates
The state’s largest public college system is asking the federal government to fund degree-granting programs in nine of the state’s prisons. The programs would help inmates successfully return to society and boost falling enrollment at the state’s community colleges.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Let’s not gut Connecticut’s public universities
Almost all of the recent Board of Regents for Higher Education’s negotiating points aim at gutting the idea of a public university.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Stop running universities like corporations
With capitalism driving higher education, we’re headed in the wrong direction and it’s time for students and the public alike, to turn it around.
Posted inEducation
CSCU asks faculty for ‘unprecedented’ givebacks
Leaders of the state’s largest public college system are asking for major concessions from its unionized teaching staff — changes the union says are “unprecedented in our bargaining history.”
Posted inPolitics
This Week in Washington
Congress moved at the 11th hour to avert a government shutdown, but it’s only a short-term fix — with a new budget deadline of Dec. 11. Access Health CT CEO James Wadleigh defended the operations of Connecticut’s health exchange to skeptical GOP lawmakers. Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini’s plans to merge with Humana were also scrutinized by a House panel this week.
Posted inEducation, Politics
Congress shuts loan program that helps thousands of CT students
WASHINGTON – Congress may have averted a government shutdown, but failed to prevent the demise of the nation’s oldest student aid program, known as the Perkins loan. Thousands of Connecticut students use this program to help finance their education.
Posted inEducation
Seven UConn students expelled for sexual assault last year
The University of Connecticut last year expelled seven students on charges of sexual assault, it reported Thursday. A number of other complaints were investigated but dismissed, it says in a report it is required to provide to federal and state officials.
Posted inEducation, Money
UConn begins labor contract talks with cost savings as goal
With an extremely tough budget year on the horizon, officials representing the University of Connecticut have started negotiating a new contract with some 4,000 professors and other unionized staff with the goal of cutting costs.
Posted inMoney
CT continues to lead nation in income, but wealth poorly distributed
WASHINGTON – Connecticut continues to lead the nation when it comes to personal income, federal economists say, but other reports show the state is also No. 1 when it comes to the uneven distribution of that wealth between the very rich and everyone else.